Mitch and I have hit a snag in Oregon. His cars head gasket blew and needs some serious repair. Supposedly everything will be fixed by tomorrow (for US$1000) but if not I'm going to try and meet a nice hippie chick here in Ashland and settle down.

Will keep anybody who actually reads this updated as events warrant.

Well I'm back in Calgary as the car was fixed. Took less than 24 hours if you can believe it. Turns out the old head gasket sprung a leak (a small piece chipped off and allowed coolant to enter cylinder 3) and needed to be replaced. The good news was the head was fine and didn't need planing or anything like that.

Bad news was it was still an 8 hour job and buddy charges what you'd expect per hour. Total damage was US$725. At least our dollar is kicking ass.

Funny story about Dave the mechanic. The guy is huge and filthy with a goatee. The kind of guy who looks like he's done time. So he's got a wad of chew in his mouth and squirts it out every few seconds. We're telling him the symptoms of the car so he takes his filthy finger, sticks it up the tailpipe, then sticks it in his mouth to taste it.

“Yep, it's a coolant leak. It tastes sweet, that's how you can tell”. Mitch and I stare shocked at him and respond, “Right…”. When Dave turns around I look at Mitch and pretend to play a banjo ala Deliverance.

If you were at my soccer game on Tuesday, August 2nd you probably heard me scream like a girl. No offense to girls, there's no doubt they're tougher than I am, they do however have higher pitched voices, and that's what I sounded like.